Google AdWords Launches Demographic Site Targeting

Via Andrew Goodman, news that Google AdWords has updated their control panel
interface today to provide demographic targeting of content ads. It comes hot on
the heels of the praise MSN adCenter has been receiving about the demographic
targeting they offer advertisers.What is
demographic site selection? in the AdWords help area explains more about the
change.

The new demographic targeting is only available for site targeted campaigns
at this time, where advertisers target specific AdSense publisher sites to
display ads on. It is US-only, with the demographic data coming from comScore
Networks. It is worth noting that the demographics is used simply for selecting
the sites that AdWords suggests to run site targeted advertising on, it does not
target specific users as they happen to visit the particular site targeted
website.

The demographic choices available are surprisingly extensive. They include:

Gender

Female

Male

Age

18-24

25-34

35-44

45-54

55-64

65+

Annual Household Income (USD)

0-14,999

15,000-24,999

25,000-39,999

40,000-59,999

60,000-74,999

75,000-99,999

100,000+

They also offer advanced options for demographics, which includes:

Ethnicity

Any

White/Caucasian

Black/African American

Asian/Pacific Islander

Hispanic

Children

Children in household

No children in household.

It is worth noting that the AdWords demographic offerings are much more detailed than what adCenter offers. Presently, adCenter allows demographic targeting by gender and age group, however adCenter splits age between five age groups while AdWords offers six. Both also offer regional targeting, which adCenter has within their demographic options.

It will be interesting to watch Google AdWords dive into targeting through
demographics, and to see if advertisers sing the praises of their offering like
they are with MSN adCenter.

The timing of this change is certainly interesting, especially with theopen signup
for MSN adCenter on Monday, where advertisers were able to sign up and start new
campaigns without having to wait for an invite.

This week, both LinkedIn and Facebook are beefing up their paid social offerings in different ways, while Google seeks to cut off Adwords revenues for fake news sites. And might Google be favouring desktop over its own AMP in its upcoming mobile-first index?

Here we’ll take a look at the basic things you need to know in regards to search engine optimisation, a discipline that everyone in your organisation should at least be aware of, if not have a decent technical understanding.